Vicissitudes
by xxCerezasxx
Summary: Written under the book prompt challenge on lj. Take the first line of every ten pages of a book and use it as a prompt for a drabble. I'm using "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Chloe/Davis.


**I do not own Smallvile.**

**The quotes used for prompts in this fic are all from "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. I do not own them in anyway, and he is given sole credit for them.**

**There will be more of these to come, this is only the first batch.**

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_But it's just like him to marry a woman born a day's hard ride away and have her die on him._

A bullet sits heavily in the pit of his abdomen. Stabs of pain radiating from the hot lead in his stomach, lightning streak shaped agony, spiking his blood with misery as hot red seeps from between his fingers in rivers. A puddle of blood forms at his feet as hydrochloric acid slowly begins to dissolve his inner tissues and organs, eats away at his insides bit by bit. He's trembling as he leans against the side of the ambulance; cool metal against his overheated cheek. He coughs and tastes copper, spits up maroon onto his uniform. He smells of incipient death, shudders with it as his muscles weaken, vision blurs and finally goes hazy.

He laughs long and loud, laughs up terror and elation, relief and hurt. Fresh blood spurts from between his lips with each chuckle; his esophagus coated in scarlet. He's _dying_ and under such unexpected circumstances; a gunshot wound to his stomach in exchange for his wallet, a watch that's worth maybe ten dollars. He's brought death and destruction to dozens, has a separate entity within him, and a gun is what is going to end his life. He laughs again, even as his breathing labors, legs give out from under him and he slides onto the hard, unrelenting pavement. He's still laughing when it hurts to breath, when it hurts to simply _be_, agony replacing the oxygen in his bloodstream.

"Davis?" He sees blue and red through the fog of impending mortality. Clark.

"Hey Clark." He smiles, his teeth stained pink with blood; grinning wide and pleased.

"What happened?" Cool hands on his injury, probing it, palms pressed flat against the entrance wound, applying pressure; futile pressure.

"I was mugged." He giggles, tasting stale metal and amusement in his mouth.

"I'll call an ambulance." He can hear the beeps of keys dialed on a cell phone.

"There's an ambulance right here Clark." A new wave of uncontrollable laughter. His chest and shoulders shake as his insides writhe. He tries to point to the ambulance; he pokes Clark in the eye instead.

"Clark what…oh my god." Approaching footsteps and a flash of gold. _Chloe_.

"Chloe." He rasps, throat dry and sticky with drying blood. A warm hand and friendly fingers cup his face; stroke the skin along his jaw.

"Clark, did you call an ambulance?"

"They said it would be at least ten minutes."

"It's alright Chloe." He takes her hand in his; smears it red with his death.

"You're going to be _fine_." Chloe sounds certain, convinced; Clark protests something but he can't understand it; can't process words as darkness slips into his brain; makes it slow and heavy.

He feels himself slipping into wonderful, heated blackness and then there's light, golden and bright, as intense as the sun, shining through his closed eyelids. He can breathe again and tears spill from his eyes; full of anger and disappointment. He lives for _**it**_ to kill another day.

Chloe lies lifeless in Clark's arms when his vision returns.

* * *

_It is light, yet they move slowly; empty, yet they carry it carefully; lifeless, yet they move with hushed precautionary words to one another, speaking of it as though, complete, it now slumbered lightly alive, waiting to come awake._

"The beast?" Chloe asks him softly, whispering words, tongue pressing against her top teeth. He nods even though his skin is tingling, even though the incipient burn of transformation is coursing through his neurons. Blood is pounding inside his skull and every modicum of concentration is being used just to finish the conversation. He says sentences but doesn't quite grasp the meaning, can taste the syllables and feel the vibrations in his vocal chords.

"Yes." He has to give _**it**_ a name Chloe can understand. The consciousness within his body simply _**is**_, without true adjectives that can adequately describe _**it**_. _**It**_ is his curse and his burden and his cross of gold. _**It**_ is his plague, his affliction, his terminal disease that kills every organism but its host. _**It**_ is the tapeworm inside his intestine that slithers and waits and sucks his life, his nourishment.

"Oh my god, your eyes." She backs away. His eyes sting and he isn't sure what hurts worse, the blood pooling in his irises or the revulsion and terror heavy in Chloe's facial muscles.

_**It**_ seizes control, and Davis Bloom fades from existence.

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_Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in quiet interstices, looking out he foams, "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes."_

A hard mattress against his back, the floral scent of cheap detergent and fabric softener. Puzzle pieces litter the smooth stone floor; discarded by careless fingers. Sweat is cooling on his forehead, on his temples as he slowly sits up in bed, the room slowly filtering in through the hazy fog of sleep. The colors grey and white assault his eyes like angry insects; stinging, buzzing, blinding.

This is not his apartment.

Door of solid cement, re-enforced with steel, metallic ice beneath his heated palms, banging loudly, thuds reverberating off too white walls. He can hear footsteps, exigent sounds, rushing towards him, rubber soles of common sneakers.

"Good morning Davis." Chloe greets him with a smile, pearly teeth and jade irises, strands of golden sunshine on her head.

"Chloe, what's going on? Where am I?" He asks; he can hear a key being inserted in a lock, hear the clicks of the tumblers.

"Davis, you're still a bit confused from the medication. You'll remember where you are." His head _feels_ slow, his blood thick and heavy, lazily moving through his body. She opens the door and comes into view, pats his shoulder comfortingly.

"Chloe, where are Clark and Lois? Jimmy?" All he can focus on is her name tag. The small, laminated rectangle with black print. It reads "Chloe Sullivan", primly attached to pale blue hospital scrubs.

Chloe is not a nurse.

"Davis." Chloe says sweetly, saccharine tone, radiating warmth and reassurance. "You don't know a Clark or Lois. And you've never been friends with a Jimmy, remember?" Honest green eyes that are deceptive, alluring and _wrong_.

"There's the patient. Are you feeling better today Mr. Bloom?" The man in the white doctor's coat is familiar, the head paramedic at the hospital, one hundred and eighty pounds of intimidating muscle and medical knowledge.

"Ken, what am I doing here?" He tries to slip out the door but friendly, hot hands grip his forearms.

"You're supposed to call me Dr. Folger Davis."

"Ken, I need to go home. I have a shift tonight." Again he strains but he is completely vulnerable. _**It**_ does nothing to aid him, offers no assistance with bursts of unimaginable strength. He's a weak compound of muscles and flesh, chemicals and organs, ossified calcium and phosphorus.

"Still having delusions Mr. Bloom?" Ken shakes his head sadly, runs a hand through his graying red hair. "I think you need to stay in your room and rest today."

"No, I need to leave." He tries once more and the fingers in his biceps are unyielding. He kicks once, to free himself, to wake from his awful dream, and then he's thrown onto the bed, four pairs of hands holding him down; straining and struggling and twisting atop the sheets of the bed. "Let me go! You don't understand! You don't know what _**it**_ can do; it's not safe to keep me here!" A sting in his arm and he watches fingers push the end of a syringe, emptying it of clear liquid.

"Davis." Chloe strokes his hair, tucks the blanket around him as pharmaceuticals race through his veins, enter his heart, a sudden effeteness washing over him.

"Chloe, please, _**it **_will kill you. I have to get away from here." He slurs, eyelids heavy, drooping skin.

"Davis, there is no "it". There's only you."

He drifts into unconsciousness and somewhere outside his room; there is a burst of uncontrollable laughter.

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**Please review. I won't post if I think no one is reading.**


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